Sleeping Giants
by clair beaubien
Summary: Dean takes care of Sam after Madison. Companion piece to my "Don't Have to Be - Ch. 9: After Madison" But you don't have to read that to understand this one.
1. Chapter 1

Sam is sleeping. Finally. Under my arm, I feel his breathing rise and fall, and his hand in my hand has finally relaxed, and I know he's breathing with his mouth open a little because crying the way he was plugs up his sinuses. But he's sleeping, so I can close my eyes and relax, maybe get some shut-eye myself.

The curtains are shut and the lights are off, and even though it's only late afternoon and the sun is still shining, the room is mostly dark. Sam's safe up against me, the way he used to sleep when he was little and had a nightmare or was sick or was scared that Dad was gone for so long. Back then, Sammy would fit right against me, his head under my chin, his feet against my shins. But now -

Now my little brother is a freaking giant. He has been for five or six years. It's hard to believe that he used to whine about being the shortest kid in his class. But he was, he usually was the shortest boy, until all of a sudden, one day, up he shot, right past Dad and right past me, and I'm not sure he's stopped yet.

I saw a lot of kids in school who were too tall for how old they were; twelve year old psyches inside seventeen year old bodies, gawky, awkward, perpetually disoriented about what to do and how to do it, with their bodies, with themselves, with everybody else.

Sam never had that problem. He was always an old soul in a child's body. So when he got gigantic, he was never awkward, never unsure of his physical self. Okay, he mighta been a little gawky every once in awhile, but I guess every teenage boy is at least sometimes.

But even for being perpetually old and permanently gigantic, my little brother is _still_ my _little_ brother. I still watch out for him. We watch out for each other, sure, we automatically take up the slack for each other whenever and wherever we need to, but Sammy's always seemed to have a little too much '_slack' _in his life. Sometimes watching out for him is an automatic thing, a reaction to years of habit, like stopping him from crossing a street when traffic's coming and he's too busy talking to notice. Sometimes it's just a feeling that I need to stick closer to him, or make him stick closer to me, until some as-yet-unknown danger is past. Sometimes it's making him laugh when all he's got inside of him is anger and aggravation.

Too many times though it's picking up the pieces of his soul and keeping them safe until we can put them back together again.

Losing Jess was bad enough. How he lost her, why he lost her, it all combined to crush him with the weight of guilt and what-ifs the size of Topeka. I thought he was healing though, I thought when he let Sarah get a little inside of him that it was a good thing, a good sign. By the time he met her, he was sleeping full nights again, not shouting himself awake anymore. He actually seemed comfortable in her company.

And then some little piece of fate decided Sam hadn't gotten the full tour of hell yet and dropped Madison in his path, and I had to stand by and let my little brother learn _again _that in lives like ours, hope is a poison.

It's not even his own situation that's shaking Sam so much. I'm sure he's not even thinking about it right now, whether he'll turn evil, if I'll ever have to decide I have to kill him. All he's grieving now, all that he's agonizing over, all that is shredding him from the inside out is how he couldn't save Madison. Even though it isn't his fault she was infected, and it isn't his fault there is no cure, he cared for her and in his mind he failed her.

If we'd been in some backwoods, isolated spot, after Madison was gone there would've been time to comfort Sam, to just hold onto him and let him grieve. But we weren't in the backwoods and I didn't have that luxury. We had to get out of there and fast. I just started driving. The first major highway I got on, we were heading west, so I figured I'd drive to the Pacific Ocean if I had to. I was going to get Sammy away from there.

Before we even got in the car, Sam had shut down. He stared out the windshield and pushed his hands down onto the bench seat like he was keeping himself upright. I was talking to him, but he wasn't answering me. I didn't push it, I just let him be quiet. What could I say anyway? '_You did the right thing. Madison is at peace'_?Yeah, platitudes always make everything so much better.

Under my arm, Sam is dead sound asleep and doesn't even twitch. He probably wouldn't wake up if I was to move, but I don't move. I keep my arm around him. These days there doesn't seem to be much I can do for Sam, to keep him safe, to help him not be afraid of what's coming in our lives. I couldn't protect him from what happened with Madison. Hell, I wanted so much to believe we'd saved her, that Sam could have even one day of normal love and intimacy with her, I practically _caused_ Sam having to kill her. So keeping him comforted, comforts me too.

We'd been driving a few hours when we needed to stop for gas. Sam looked around at the gas pumps and cashier kiosk, so I knew he was registering what was going on.

"I'll be right back, Sammy. You want anything?"

I didn't know if he was hearing me yet, but I wanted to try. But he didn't answer me, so I worked as fast as I could, filling the tank and paying for the gas. Just as I got back in the car, Sam sobbed. Once. Just once. I knew he wasn't ready yet for the whole '_I'm here and I've got you' _hug and huddle_,_ even if I was, so I patted his arm and gave it a squeeze and he shut down again and we kept driving west.

Another couple rest stops down the highway, I decided to stop and use the bathroom and get us some food. I wasn't hungry and I figured Sam wasn't either, but I figured I might as well get some food anyway, just in case. Sam didn't get out when I did, so I wasn't sure if maybe he didn't know where we were or why.

"Pit stop, Sammy. Hungry? Need to go in?"

He looked at me, which was something, anyway. Then he thought about it. Then he shook his head. Personally I thought he should take the opportunity, but I guessed his body was shut down as much as his emotions. When he was ready to talk, or eat, or pee, he'd let me know.

I didn't want to be gone from him too long, so I made a fast grab of food and water. And pretzels. For some reason I thought pretzels might be something Sam could eat, so I grabbed a little bag of them and checked out.

Sam was in the same spot as I left him. I put some water and pretzels next to him and he looked at them but he didn't touch them.

I tried talking to him every once in a while. Saying I thought we'd stop for a room in another couple hours or so. Commenting on the traffic. Asking if he was doing okay. Just a few words every once in awhile. And each time I said something, Sam would look at me, and look like he was trying to say something, or trying to think _how_ to say something, but nothing would come out, and he'd give me that look, that lost little brother look, and I'd put my hand over his until that look went away.

Finally, I stopped trying to talk to Sam and just kept my hand over his. That's all I needed to say anyway.

I don't think it was even dinnertime when I pulled into a motel. I was exhausted, so Sam had to be totally wasted. When I got out of the car, he followed with his hand, like he didn't want me to let go of him.

"You wanna come in with me? I'm gonna get our room." I asked, but I don't think he heard me. I shut the car door and kept as much of an eye on him as I could while I checked us in.

When I got back to the car, Sam was in the driver's seat, with his hands on the wheel. He hadn't moved the seat back, so his knees were jammed against the dashboard. He wouldn't have been able to drive like that even if he was alert and coherent. I cleared my throat and he looked at me. And didn't move. So I nodded to the passenger seat and after a minute of thinking about it, Sammy slid over again.

I got in and picked up the bag of pretzels and water bottle that got pushed to the floor when Sam slid past them. Sam pushed his hand toward me again, and I put my hand over his and purposely took a long way around to our room so I didn't have to let go again so soon, and I didn't let go until we were both out of the car and my giant little brother was standing next to me at the trunk of the car.

I knew if something happened right then, if we had to suddenly hunt something, if we came under attack from some bad guy, supernatural or not, I knew that Sam could and would react to the situation, put his grief and agony aside and deal with the threat. Putting our feelings aside was something we were both raised to.

But there was no hunt, no bad guy, so Sam could deal with his pain, _we_ could deal with it, the best that we could. And so my gigantic little brother stood beside me at the trunk of the car, with rounded shoulders, bowed head, watching every move my hands made, waiting blankly for me to hand him his backpack and lead the way to the motel room.

I was still talking, giving him a running monologue of what he could see I was doing, '_here's your backpack, I've got my duffel, I'm gonna shut the trunk now…'_ but I didn't think he was hearing me. I wanted to put my hand on Sam's arm and give him a gentle shake and get him to look at me, make some connection, make sure he was still in there. Make sure he knew that _I_ was there. I settled for just touching his arm as I moved to the door of our motel room, and Sam followed along behind, blank, completely and utterly blank.

So, I opened the motel door and set my stuff on the first bed, and Sam came in behind me and headed for the far bed. I went back to the car and got the weapons and the water and pretzels and the salt, and when I went back into the room, Sam was still making his way to his bed. I salted the room and used the bathroom and checked the heat in the room and Sam had only just got to the bed.

I could understand that. As long as you're moving, even if it's just in the passenger seat of a moving car or creeping along across a tiny motel room, as long as you're moving, it keeps you - or _feels_ like it keeps you - one step ahead of the grief.

And if you stop, you die.

When Sam finally made it all the way to his bed, he stood there, staring at it like he knew what he had to do but he didn't want to do it. So I kept on with my monologue and pulled his backpack off his shoulder and propelled him down to sitting on the bed. I told him he'd have a shower and some food and then some sleep, and while I talked and he heard me or not, I crouched down and pulled off his boots and socks.

I used to do that, up until Sam was about six or seven, when it was time for bed or a bath or just a change of clothes, I'd get him started by taking off his shoes and socks. Not because he couldn't, but because if he wasn't too busy talking to do it, he was too tired or too sick to.

Right now, I wished he was talking my ear off.

So - I got him back up to his feet and into the bathroom. I turned on the water to let it heat up and wondered when or if Sam was going to catch on to what I wanted to happen next.

"Okay, we're gonna get your clothes off and get you in the shower. And hopefully you can take it from there, because I'd rather not have to bathe you, but if I have to I will."

Sam was looking at me, I could tell things were percolating in his brain. They might be taking two or three or ten times as long to process, but they were processing.

"Sam?"

He blinked and nodded and started to unbutton his shirt. Just to be sure we were both talking about the same thing, I waited there until the shirts and jeans were off then I went to get him some clean clothes out of his backpack. I took my time, giving Sam the chance to lose his boxers and get in the shower. He might be _semi_-comatose, but that meant that _some _of him was still alert and bashful.

It was only a few minutes, I only took a few minutes to grab his clothes and go back into the bathroom, but when I did, Sammy was in the shower, crying. Not just sniffling and clearing his throat crying, but out and out breath-taking, soul-shredding, heart-breaking sobbing.

Four times I tried to say something to him. Four times I took a breath and opened my mouth and nothing came out. My giant little brother was breaking down and I couldn't offer him any comfort without risking breaking down too.

Finally I managed to take a deep breath and call, "_Sam your clothes are on the sink, I'm taking the dirty…" _

Then I waited. If he needed me, I was going to be there.

But the sobbing stopped, I thought I even heard a faint, '_okay'_ over the water, so I went out to get some food ready for him. Just in case he felt like he could eat something.

It didn't take long to set out the pretzels and prepackaged sandwiches, crack open a bottle of water, and get some coffee started. When that was done, I sat at the table and tried to think of something else to do until Sam came out of the bathroom.

Tried to think what I would do _after_ Sam came out of the bathroom.

He needed to eat, he needed to sleep. _I_ needed to know he he was going to be able to handle his pain.

The shower turned off and I rearranged the food on the table and checked the thermostat again and pulled the blankets back on Sam's bed and got some aspirin out of our first aide kit and went back to the table to wait for him to shuffle out of the bathroom and over to the table.

"What's your pleasure, Sammy? We got a roast beef sandwich, turkey, tuna fish - your favorite." I tried to sound perky, but I think it got lost in the translation.

Sam looked at the table and scanned everything that was on it, but shook his head.

"_Water? C'n I just have water_?" It was the first words he'd said to me since before he lost Madison.

"Sure." I handed over a bottle and Sam took one swallow and one swallow only and put the cap back on before I could offer up the aspirin.

"Hold it - here." I held the aspirin out to him. Still moving slow and thinking slow, it took a few beats for Sam to lift his hand and accept the pills from me. Then another few beats for him to swallow them with one more swallow of water.

Then I had to take the water bottle out of his hand and put it on the table because Sam didn't seem to realize that was the next thing to do.

"What d'you say you get some sleep, hunh? Maybe we'll both get some shut-eye until dinnertime. What d'you say?"

I didn't get an answer and I didn't expect one. I didn't need one.

"All right, here we go." I put my hands on Sam's shoulders and propelled him away from the table and to the bed. He folded pretty easy once we got there, sitting, then laying down.

He looked so small, and lost, and hopeless. I tucked the blankets around him and sat next to him. If I said anything to him now, it would be platitudes, I knew. So I didn't say it with words. I only put my hand on his head and tried to _will_ some comfort into him. Comfort and strength and the okay to grieve, for everything he'd ever lost in his life.

Guess it worked, just a few seconds later, ten or fifteen seconds later, Sammy started crying again. The same heart- soul - and lung-breaking sobbing he'd broken down in the shower with. Sobbing so hard I was surprised he could breathe.

It was finally time for the hug and huddle.

"All right, Sammy. All right. Give me a minute."

I pulled the curtains all the way shut and turned off the lights and set a couple bottles of water on the bedside table and got into the bed behind Sammy. He was still sobbing, lying on his side, pressing his face into his pillow, and I stretched out behind him and wrapped my arm around him and took his hand into mine and held on.

To anybody else, this would be really weird, I know. Two grown men, two brothers, wrapped up together in the same bed. But most of the rest of our lives would be weird to anybody else anyway. And my little brother needed me so the rest of the world could go screw itself.

"All right Sammy, all right. It's just us here, just us. You do whatever you have to, it's gonna be okay."

I could remember from longer ago than I _could _remember the feeling of Sam's hair tickling my nose, his breathing filling the space between us, his heartbeat under my arm. This is us. This _was_ us, when my little brother was still my _little_ brother and I was still big enough to protect him from anything he needed protecting from.

Sammy grabbed hold of my arm with his other hand and held on like he thought he'd float away without me. He was coughing/crying/choking/sobbing, lost and miserable, and all he had was me.

All we had was each other.

So he held onto me and I held onto him while he shook so hard the bed rattled, and he cried so hard he was having trouble breathing, and his heart broke so bad I wondered if we'd ever get it all put back together.

"Okay, Sammy. Okay. We're okay."

We stayed that way awhile, I don't know how long, half an hour maybe. I could tell when Sam was wearing out, when exhaustion started winning out over grief. His sobbing turned to panting, his desperate hold on me eased up, the bed rattled only every once in awhile.

When I knew he was ready, I offered him the already-opened bottle of water. He sat up and drained it, like I pretty much figured he would. I sat up next to him, waiting for whatever he needed next. If he wanted to eat, if he needed to use the bathroom.

If he wanted to stay with me and me with him.

He finished the water and handed the bottle back and laid down again, heavy and exhausted. I laid down behind him and put my arm around him again and my giant little brother took my hand into his and went to sleep.

So now I'm awake just a little while longer, feeling his breathing and his heartbeat, his hair tickling my nose and his body finally relaxing into rest. And it's when he is relaxed and sleeping and safe in my arms that I close my eyes and fall asleep too.

The end.


	2. Chapter 2

I woke up and I was four years old again.

Or five, or three, or any age from six months up until the night before my eighth birthday.

'_Dean, can I sleep with you tonight?'  
_'_Why?'  
_'_Because after tomorrow, I'll be too old to ever do it again…'_

I woke up with Dean tucked neatly -_ incredibly_ – around me. I could feel him at my back, one arm still draped loosely around me, his breath still warming through my hair.

I was twenty-three years old, practically twenty-four, and I was sleeping next to my brother like I_ was_ four again and afraid of the dark.

'_It's OK, Sammy. I won't ever let anything get you.'_

My hand had slipped out of Dean's while I was sleeping and when I took a deep breath, he roused enough to search for it again and take hold haphazardly, with a couple of his fingers holding onto a couple of my fingers.

Tears filled my eyes and I didn't want them to when I thought about –_ couldn't help but think about_ – Dean braving the Mother of All Chick Flick Moments to take care of me. To comfort me. He was just – he was just –

He was right next to me like I was_ worth_ protecting. Like I was worth anything at all, when we both knew there was something inside me so dark, his final option would be to have to kill me.

If some other hunter didn't kill me first.

'_Look, don't worry about it, OK? Don't worry about what Gordon said. Don't worry about anybody else but us. Haven't I always protected you? Well, I'm just gonna__** keep**__ protecting you…' _

I kept waiting for Dean to say that he_ would_ kill me when it came to it. Hell, I kept_ pushing_ him to say it. He kept saying, '_never will, never would'_ and I kept nagging and ragging and pushing him, trying to get him to admit there'd come a point when he_ would_ kill me. Though I wasn't sure what that would prove other than that I can annoy my brother beyond all reason.

And I've always known_ that_.

Maybe I just wanted to keep hearing that he wouldn't kill me. Maybe I just kept needing that reassurance that I_ was_ worth protecting, worth Dean risking his life over and over to protect me, because I didn't believe it otherwise.

Because all my life, some things were never true unless Dean said they were true.

'_Sammy, for like the millionth time, it doesn't matter what Mrs. Nagel told you, or what any of the other kids in your kindergarten class said, there__** is**__ a Santa Claus and he'll know where you are. See? I made a sign to put in the window where he can see it. You'll see, Sammy. Santa'll stop here tonight. He will."_

The room was dark. It'd been daylight– at least I_ thought_ it was daylight – when Dean got me to lie down and I finally cracked wide open. But now the room was dark, so it'd been a few hours at least of me wearing Dean like a blanket, and_ sleeping._

I hadn't slept really for months after Jessica, and I was afraid that it'd be months again before I could sleep after what just happened with Madison. But I'd fallen deep asleep. Dean hadn't even slipped me any funny pills, not that I knew. He just let me fall apart where he could catch all the pieces and that was enough for me to sleep with no terrors, no nightmares.

He'd always done that, always been that way. There'd never been a problem I told Dean about, or that he found out about, that he didn't make his problem too.

'_Dean, I think I jammed the gun. I think maybe I loaded it wrong.'  
_'_Don't worry about it. We'll take it apart and get it working right again.'_

'_Dean, I need community service to graduate high school. How am I supposed to get that?'  
_'_No problem. We'll get Pastor Jim to figure out how to give you credit for hunting. Hunting IS a community service after all.'_

'_We got a problem here, buddy? No? You don't think so? Well let me enlighten you how this works – if you got a problem with my brother, then__** I**__ got a problem with__** you**__. And I don't like problems so I make them go away. Very far away. So why don't we just skip the part where I make you cry like a girl and instead you leave now and stay as far away from my brother as you possibly can, for the rest of your freakin' life.'_

I sniffled on the tears and coughed against my will. Dean roused again.

"S'm? S'okay. S'okay, go back t'sleep. M'here…"

Way to not make me cry, dude. Because I did. Of course. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to die. I wanted to run as fast as I could as far as I could to somewhere where nothing hurt anymore. But since I couldn't do that, since I couldn't run, I retreated into the shelter of my big brother's comfort. It didn't take the pain away, but it made it safe for me to feel the pain, to keep from falling apart inside of it.

So, I cried. Again. Not as bad as when I first laid down, but bad enough to really wake Dean up. I could tell, the way his breathing changed, I could tell that he came all the way awake and was keeping still behind me, waiting to see what was going to happen, how bad I was going to get.

When I only cried and didn't shatter, he pulled his arm from around me and sat up next to me. Through my blankets and flannel and shame, I could feel him stroke the back of his hand across my shoulders.

I didn't want this, I didn't want –_ this._ Crying. Aching. Trying to pull strength through the hole in my chest. I didn't want Dean to have to sit there, have to try and keep me sane, have to worry how much I could take before I lost my balance on the edge of the darkness inside of me. Because every step I took, the darkness came that much more into focus and right at that moment I didn't know if I was crying anymore for Madison, or Jess, or Dad, or even Dean, or if I was finally just feeling 100% sorry for myself.

Maybe it was all of the above, rolled into one weeping mess.

When I quieted down, Dean moved his hand from my back to scuffle through my hair and then rested it on my shoulder. He didn't say anything and I wondered what he was thinking. Was he tired, was he fed up, did he want to be anywhere but here with his pathetically needy wreck of a brother?

"Know what this reminds me of?" He asked me, after awhile.

"What?" I asked back, sounding as congested as if I had the world's worst head cold. That's what it felt like too.

"You probably don't remember, I think you were only four or five. I was sick, really sick, with flu or food poisoning or whatever, and I was in bed. Dad'd been awake a day and a half taking care of me and fell asleep I guess, and instead of waking him up like he told you to do, you decided to take care of me. Even though right up until that moment, my being sick had totally grossed you out, you decided that I was your job. For I don't know how long, all day, all daylight, you kept me stocked with cans of ginger ale, you kept a cold wash cloth on the back of my neck becuase I was always too hot, you figured out how to empty the wastebasket and rinse it out every time I threw up even though I remember it turned you three shades of green and made you gag, and in between all that, you sat with me in the bed, patting my hair, telling me I was gonna be okay, you were taking care of me. You didn't turn on the TV or play or sing to yourself or anything, you didn't complain about being bored or hungry. I was sick and you stayed right with me and took care of me."

No, I had no memory of that, except the memory maybe of Dean telling me about it once or twice before in our lives.

"So – because you're sitting in the bed next to me?" I asked. Unless he was saying he'd found me gross before that, which at this point, you know –_ whatever_.

"Because when something needs doing, you get it done, no matter what it is, what you have to do, no matter how it makes you feel. You get it done."

"_Yeah_. And then I fall apart."

"Of course then you fall apart." He stroked my back again. "That's being _human_."

But I couldn't help thinking of what Dad said, '_if you can't save Sam, you have to kill him…' _what Gordon said, '_you're no better than the filthy things you hunt…' _

What I've been saying to myself.

"_Am I?"_

And Dean's hand was back on my head.

"_Yes, you are. _Being human isn't what you do, it's how you react to what you do. If you weren't human, you wouldn't hurt this bad."

'_This bad'_ was an understatment.

"Then I must be the most human person on the face of the earth." I sniffled out, scrubbing my sleeve under my nose.

Dean's hand on my head scuffled through my hair again.

"_I've always thought so,_" he said.

And because he was Dean, and because he'd always taken care of me, and because some things were never true unless Dean said they were true - I believed him.

It felt like a million pounds of pressure eased off of me. Tiredness that was just tiredness and not the exhaustion of grief made muscles that I didn't even know were cramped up relax out and I let out a long breath.

"Go back to sleep, Sammy." Dean said. "I'll be right here."

And I was twenty-three years old again and my brother was comforting me and that was okay because I needed it, because I deserved it.

Because my brother said so.

The end.


End file.
